I’m feeling a fair amount of nostalgia looking back over these pictures. Jerry has grown up so much and it has happened in the blink of an eye. The sweaters are getting bigger and they take longer to knit, and I really can’t believe I have a 7 year old boy getting ready for second grade.

The pattern: Seamless Shirt-Yoke Sweater by Elizabeth Zimmermann from Knitting Without Tears. Ravelry lists this pattern as being from Knitting Workshop, but I used KWT, where it briefly appears.

The yarn: Brown Sheep Nature Spun Sport. I have the urge to go buy tons and tons of this yarn. Knitting with it makes me want to only knit with it forever and ever (brief dalliances with yarns like Noro or Ultra Alpaca are expected, naturally). Unfortunately, due to low demand, my LYS has stopped stocking this yarn. I’m going to open a yarn store that stocks ONLY sport weight, woolen spun wool in a dizzying range of colors.

The gauge: 6 sts per inch. On a US 4 needle. The fabric is light – surprisingly light – for such a big sweater.

The pricetag: The whole sweater weighs 238 grams; less than 5 balls of yarn. At $3.50 per ball, you do the math. The cost of making this sweater is damn cheap, and the result is much nicer than anything you’d find in a store (the knitter says, humbly).

While knitting the body and sleeves of Jerry’s striped sweater, I pondered how I would finish the top. I love going seamless, because you can pretty much leave those big decisions ’til the end. After much thought I ended up going with a Seamless Saddle Shoulder Shirt Yoke Sweater.

The shirt yoke refers to this horizontal patch of knitting across the back of the neck.

Yesterday morning I cut the tiny v-neck steek and opened up the sweater, which finally allowed me to see if everything “worked.”

Phew. Having never knit this style of seamless sweater, and adjusting EZ’s pithy directions for an adult size sweater down to a kiddo sized sweater, I wasn’t really sure if my calculations would be right. But after looking at my own math and sketches a million times over, I ended up going with my gut and hoping for the best. It’s really hard to be light and breezy about it when there’s a steek involved.

But it all worked! Yay! The neck opening was really large before adding the ribbing.

So last night I sat down and finished the neck. I had left two stitches at the bottom of the v live, and made sure to pick up stitches evenly around those two. After working the stitches in pattern for one round, I decreased on both sides of the center on every round (including the bind-off round).

(looks funny without a shirt underneath – and with unwoven ends flying about)

Then, instead of waking Jerry up at 10 pm (I really, really wanted to know if it fit!), I waited until this morning to try it on him. It fits!

I know he likes it, too (he has repeatedly and enthusiastically told me throughout the knitting of this one, “I love the design!”), but he probably won’t wear it much, being the warm natured creature that he is. That’s okay with me, I told him, as long as I get good modeled shots after it is all the way done and blocked. I can sense that he is really pleased that I’m making something just for him, even if we both know he won’t wear it.

Jerry is at Ju-jitsu camp today (hence the yellow belt). We’re missing him. But I will be busy with my darning needle.